


invincible

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Depression, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 21:48:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19450156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: the first day after is like a breath of fresh air





	invincible

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in May as a back-up for fedij that I didn't end up using.

The first day after is like a breath of fresh air. 

Bad days weigh him down, drag him to the depths of his subconscious, where his internal thoughts beat him senseless with self loathing. They feel heavy, thick with desaturated fog, greyscale and flat. 

After, there is the day he wakes feeling clear headed for the first time in ages, like the clouds have parted, the breeze blows through his hair and into his lungs and he's restored. 

He feels invincible. 

He stretches his arms over his head and points his toes the moment he wakes up, elongating his spine, feeling tall and alive where he'd previously been hunched and unresponsive. 

The shower isn't a chore, but a lagoon of heady peace. The warm water is a heavenly cascade, and the soap suds smell fruity when he uses a touch too much shower gel, just to indulge. 

Breakfast goes down quickly, eager to get on with his day. Each bite is better than the last, and it's good to have his taste buds back. 

Yesterday, he'd put one foot in front of the other in his empty hallway and called it a victory, today he races to the living room and meets Phil's eyes with his own, wide open and accepting. 

Phil doesn't comment, as if Dan is a small animal, emerging from his hidey hole, timid and shy, not to be spooked lest he retreat back from whence he came. 

But it doesn't feel like that today. Dan pushes their shoulders together on the couch and leans his full weight into the warm, familiar embrace of Phil's body. The soft plush of Phil's lips taste like they always do when they share a quick, happy, good morning kiss, and Dan is thankful he can appreciate it. 

"Morning," Phil says, after. 

"Morning." 

Dan smiles, using muscles his face hasn't bothered with in days. The slight creak feels like breaking the surface of a deep pool and breathing in lungfuls of cool, life-saving air.

His reflexes are quick. He beats Phil at several rounds of Mario Kart and then suggests they go outside, to fetch coffee, or lunch, or anything at all. 

"Are you sure?" Phil asks, protective and hesitant as he always is. 

Dan doesn't want any of that today.

He wants to feel the sun on his skin, to breathe in the London air and remind himself that he's allowed. That he exists in this universe today, not just the one inside his head. 

"Let's go," Dan urges, and eases Phil onward with large, insistent, hands on the small of his back, his shoulder, and briefly, palm to palm.

Phil goes, because Phil would follow him into open flame if Dan insisted long enough and loud enough. But Dan catches him looking over a couple of times. 

He knows what Phil is thinking, but he pushes it aside. Today, he is invincible. 

Outside is loud, and multicoloured, but nothing feels too much. Dan drinks something sugary when Phil suggests it even though he wouldn't usually, and snaps off a piece of the cookie Phil buys, sitting next to him on the Starbucks sofa and feeling for all the world like he couldn't give a fuck if anyone sees them. 

He feels unshakeable, unseeable, unreachable, out here in the wild of the busy London day, his limbs light, steps quick, keeping pace with the crowd on the underground and standing in Phil's space in the train car, one hand gripping the bar overhead, even though he doesn't really need to. 

For once, the world doesn't scare him. 

"Let's order pizza," Dan says when they get home. 

"Are you sure?" Phil says, on repeat as it has been all day. 

Dan is sure. 

"Yes," Dan insists. He's already got the web page open, and he's clicking a series of buttons that are ingrained at this point, rehearsed and repeated time after time. 

Phil's mouth is doing that thing it does when he has something to say but is holding back, and his long fingers are fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of his t-shirt. 

"What?" Dan asks, because leaving things well alone when they are liable to hurt him is a skill he's still perfecting. 

"I just... Are you sure?" 

Dan sighs, wishing there was something else Phil could say. He knows what's underneath it, curiosity at the stark contrast between Dan yesterday and Dan today. 

Dan doesn't know how to explain that they might as well be two different people. The dark, twisted thing in his head is at bay today and he doesn't want to analyse why. 

"I'm sure," Dan says. "Please Phil, don't." 

"I'm not doing anything," Phil shrugs. Easiness affected, Dan admires the fluid way his limbs move, the nonchalance he's learned to put on, even if it isn't what he really feels. 

"You are." 

Resentment doesn't sit well with invincibility. They are at odds with each other, fractious and unsettled. 

"I'm glad you're having a good day," Phil says. 

"I am having a good day." 

Phil smiles. Dan wasn't expecting it to be genuine, but he finds that it is. He knows all of Phil smiles, the nuance and variety that they have. With clear eyes and a light feeling in his chest he can tell the difference. This one is real. 

"Good," Phil says, around that genuine smile, "I like happy Dan."

"Then what's the problem?"

Phil's eyes dart over the line of Dan's eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, the place on his cheek where his dimple is. He's cataloguing, Dan thinks, looking to see all the places tension might be, knowing Dan's expressions just as well as Dan knows his smiles. 

"I want you to keep having good days," Phil says. "If you can. I don't want you to run before you can walk." 

Dan understand that. He knows it must be hard to watch him, stumbling on unsteady legs, the gait of a newborn deer, drifting through their apartment like a ghost. He can understand Phil's hesitation, the temptation to want Dan to take his time, learn to walk at speed only once he's learned to take steps unaided. 

How does Dan explain invincibility? 

"I want to run," Dan says. 

Phil nods, leaving words out of it, giving Dan the space to elaborate. 

"I know about self care, about my tool kit and the balance I need to keep. I know about the weights and measures and how I have to put the work in to avoid the bad days as much as I can. I know about taking measured risks beyond my comfort zone, small steps to evaluate how steady I am from day to day. I know how to navigate the world in the way that I'm supposed to." Dan shifts, feeling the energy still left in his body, stored up and unused. "But when I've been still for so long, when everything has been at a stop, I can't deal with slow. Baby steps are for tomorrow. For today, Phil, let me run." 

Phil leans over and pushes the button on their order. For the rest of the evening, as Dan tests the limits of his new-found strength, Phil doesn't ask if Dan is sure, and Dan doesn't have to tell him that he is.

Dan runs circles and circles around the good feeling in his head, up and down the avenues of light, skirting the patches of darkness he knows are never far away. He revels it in, gives himself over to the day and feels just as strong and unbreakable as he likes. 

Dan isn't invincible. He's aware, from experience, that this bulletproof feeling only exists in this liminal space between the darkness and the comforting routine of his usual, steady pace. It's a cool drink of water amidst the desert, a pit stop on the never-ending stretch of his life, but he'll take it. He'll enjoy it while it's here, he'll be careful not to test just how invincible he is, but that doesn't mean he has to spoil how good it feels to finally be free of depression's clutches.

This isn't all or nothing, It isn't a choice between happy and sad, it's a peak. Tomorrow he'll go back to the things he knows he needs to do, learning and growing, challenging himself, choosing to fight a battle against the deepest pits of himself with armour built from the lessons he's learned. Today is a battle he doesn't need to have. It's a reprieve. 

He's invincible. Just for today.


End file.
